Abstract
Livestock and palm oil industries are both vital agricultural farming systems providing food to the world. The activities of these industries require land for production. Between them, the livestock industry requires extensive land and is, thus, found to be the primary cause of deforestation in the world. In 2012, it used nearly 300 times more land area than oil palm. As very large areas need to be cleared, a very large non-recurrent carbon stock loss and carbon debt are incurred by the livestock industry. This debt is 612 times larger than that of the palm oil industry. As time progresses, the carbon debt of the livestock industry deepens since it is a recurrent carbon source. On the contrary, the relatively smaller carbon debt of the palm oil industry decreases with time since it is a net carbon sink.